Fresh Sausage Recipes

Photo by Hank Shaw

Fresh sausages are not exactly cured meat, but they are part of a salami-maker’s repertoire; you can’t make salami if you can’t first make fresh sausages. Below are an eclectic list of fresh sausage recipes made with both wild game and domestic meats, mostly lamb and pork in that case.

Why make your own? Control.

You can add or subtract anything you’d like, adjust how coarse or fine the sausage is, make them skinny or fat, long or short, spicy or sweet. A well-made sausage is a symphony in a link, needing nothing more than a simple accompaniment to play harmony.

Note that while I am categorizing these sausages by what meat is in them, understand that you can mix and match. There is no reason you cannot use pork or duck or whatever in what’s listed as a venison sausage recipe.

Basics

If you’ve never made sausage before, I wrote a basic tutorial on how to make sausages at home on my friend Elise’s site Simply Recipes. Start there.

Venison, Beef, Lamb or Goat

Keep in mind that when I say “venison,” I am lumping in deer, elk, moose, antelope, caribou, etc…

A traditional South African link made with a mix of pork and beef (or wild game) and flavored aggressively with coriander and other spices. I first learned of this sausage under, well, extreme circumstances.

There is a strong sausage-making tradition in Southeast Asia, and unlike the smooth Vietnames sausages, the Hmong sausages are coarse and rustic. I prefer them. These are flavored with ginger, chiles and cilantro.

An Italian sausage from Umbria that mixes liver and pork meat. This is my favorite thing to do with wild boar liver, which can be strong-tasting otherwise. In this sausage, flavored with oranges, the liver is barely noticable.

Hank, I’m thinking about using rabbit (cottontails) mixed with pork and pork fat to make sausages and wondering what your thoughts are. Have you ever used rabbit before and do you think there is a particular recipe of yours that would work well? Thanks for your help.